When Archbishop Trench retired, through failing powers, he
did so in the first instance to the House of Bishops and to the
Representative Body, and then to his Diocesan Synod in a very
touching and dignified letter of farewell. Dean Dickinson told
me that it was he who wrote this letter, the Archbishop being
wholly unable to think of anything for some time, that he imitated,
with his great powers of mimickry, Trench's style, and that afterwards,
when the Archbishop had recovered enough to read it, he was greatly
pleased with it. The Synod thereupon elected Lord Plunket, the
Bishop of Meath, to succeed him. Whately was entirely English;
Trench had spent more than half his life in England, and was
purely English in character. Plunket was entirely Irish. His
ancestors had been settled here for centuries; he was born and
bred an Irishman; he was a graduate of Dublin University; all
his life had been spent in Ireland, and no one could have been
inspired with a truer patriotism or a more ardent Jove of his
country. Patriotism was one of the ruling passions of his life,
and he was ever ready to raise his voice on behalf of Ireland.

I remember a notable illustration of this. While he was Archbishop
a great meeting was held in the Mansion House to express the
opinion of the citizens of Dublin on a question which was then
agitating the public mind, the financial relations of England
and Ireland, at which I was present. Most of those in the hall
were Roman Catholics. There were many Roman priests and Nationalist
M.Ps., Redmond, Dillon, Healy and lesser lights of that party.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop sat on one side of the Lord Mayor,
Lord Plunket on the other. Eloquent and powerful speeches were
made, all warmly received. But there was no doubt as to which
speaker was greeted with the most cordial cheers, which made
the most telling and well-reasoned address, which best held the
attention of the audience and which sat down amid the most enthusiastic
and rapturous applause. On that occasion, as on all others, Plunket's
dignified yet gracious bearing, his beautifully clear, sonorous
voice and distinct articulation enforced respectful attention,
while he possessed in a high degree the orator's skill to put
himself en rapport with his hearers, to ingratiate himself
with them as Mark Antony did with the Roman populace, and to
carry them with him as he developed his argument.

I remember another case. A statue to Father Mathew, the famous
advocate of total abstinence, was to be unveiled in what was
then known as Sackville Street. Plunket had the courage and ability
to do what few Protestant bishops would, or could, have done.
He came forward in the wide street before a vast multitude, chiefly
Roman Catholics, and delivered an address on their great priest
and his noble work, which was punctuated by constant bursts of
cheering.

These incidents show not only his remarkable powers of oratory
inherited from his celebrated grandfather, but the largeness
of heart and breadth of sympathy that the entire nation recognised.
There was no narrowness, no trace of bigotry in him, none of
the odium theologicum that has marred so many divines.
And yet he had strong and decided opinions; he never abated one
jot of principle either in politics or in religion. He never
sought popularity by yielding up or suppressing that which he
believed to be right and true. On the one side he fraternized
with Nonconformists, and yet none was more emphatic than he in
claiming, as he constantly did, that we, and we alone, form the
duly constituted Church of Christ in Ireland, the Church founded
by St. Patrick, with a hierarchy and clergy whose Orders are
derived in unbroken succession from the Apostles and with a Scriptural
and ancient Liturgy, while all other Christian bodies in the
country are, in greater or less degree, schismatics, and that
the true way to attain Christian unity is to join all in the
old Church. On the other hand, he was always prepared to be friendly
with Roman Catholics. I have met their priests at his house,
and with Archbishop Walsh he was on the best of terms. And yet,
who was a stronger Protestant, who was more earnest in endeavouring
to win our strayed brethren back to the true fold or to guard
our own against Romish error? It will be remembered how he exposed
himself to the bitter, even furious, attacks of the Church Times
and its school by his resolute support of the Spanish reformers.
Very hard words were used, language so disrespectful and insulting
as to defeat its own object and excite sympathy for the line
he took with such pertinacity and such imperturbable good humour.
Whatever opinion men held about it, they could not but feel that
his conduct of the business was a lesson to all men, and it immensely
strengthened his cause. It showed the power of gentle courtesy
and calm reasoning as opposed to angry and abusive epithets.
He always fought fair, like the gentleman that he was, and I
do not think he ever spoke a word that rankled in his adversary's
heart or was betrayed by the heat of the moment into saying what
he would afterwards wish to recall. It used to be said that he
had no backbone, and a jest that went the rounds was that in
a frequent trick which he had of putting his hand behind his
back while speaking he was feeling for what was not there. But
a backbone he had; I have met few men with a harder, and this
was found out as time went on. His resolute persistence, his
dogged determination not to be beaten in carrying out the plans
on which he had set his heart, was indeed one of his most salient
characteristics, and it made him a real power in the land for
accomplishing good. After he was gone it was more fully recognised.
Men recalled his stately presence, his high-bred courtesy even
to the meanest, his lofty and broad-minded patriotism, his large-hearted
generosity, his open-handed liberality, his unbounded hospitality
and his perfect passion for incessant labour, and they felt that
a prince and a great man had fallen in Israel.

Archbishop Plunket was not only admired and trusted, he was
loved, and especially by his clergy. To us all his death came
like a personal bereavement. Never was there a bishop more kind,
more fatherly, more sympathetic, more ready to listen and to
give counsel or help. He would come to my parish, would take
the liveliest interest in all that was going on there, the school,
any little improvements in the churches, any efforts made to
help the people. He would walk round my garden, examine the shrubs
with a practised eye and propose to exchange plants with me.
Gardening, indeed, was his favourite hobby, and he would say,
"If I were not what I am, I would have liked to be a landscape
gardener." Nor was he destitute of the saving grace of humour,
and his speech was often savoured with salt. I remember, when
I was in Bray, I had to show him in Christ Church a beautiful
glass mosaic behind the Holy Table, lately erected by the Meath
family, and representing the Transfiguration. I pointed out a
shamrock which the artist had introduced on the ground, presumably
because it was for an Irish church. The Archbishop examined it,
and then said in his slow deliberate way, "I do not know
if there are any shamrocks on Mount Hermon; I am sure there are
plenty of real rocks there."

No doubt he had his failings and his limitations--who has
not? He was not a deeply read scholar like his predecessors;
whether he was a man of affairs I cannot say, for I never sat
with him at Councils, though I should imagine that he was not
deficient in dealing with the complex business of a diocese.
But he was a great man, with the true greatness that comes, not
from rank or wealth or even intellectual gifts, but from moral
qualities--a high courage, the innate chivalry that forgets self,
the heart full of loving-kindness, the real saintliness and the
simple faith. And the world knew it, and now his statue stands
next to the Parliament House in Dublin, the tall figure with
the benignant face, of a patriot, a philanthropist and a true
servant of God, the figure of one of whom the whole nation is
justly proud.